Many different biological compounds bind copper to varying degrees. These compounds are important in copper trafficking, enzymatic reactions, and cell signaling. We are developing a device that will bind and purify copper binding compounds. To accomplish this, we have fabricated a microfluidic device from glass and PDMS. The device consists of two annealed glass coverslips and a PDMS spacer. The glass supports a lipid bilayer that contains phosphatidylserine, a phospholipid that binds strongly to copper under basic conditions, and under acidic conditions is protonated and releases the copper ions. The supported lipid bilayer is initially saturated with copper ions in a basic solution, then solution containing copper binding compounds and non-copper binding impurities is introduced. The copper binding compounds bind to the bilayer-bound copper ions, and the non-copper binding compounds are rinsed away. Acidic solution is then introduced and the copper and copper binding compounds are released. This technique can also potentially be applied to chromatographic separations, in which compounds with different copper binding constants are eluted at different times based on their binding constant.

Phosphatidylserine-containing supported lipid bilayer as a separation medium for copper binding compounds

251st National Meeting (2016)

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